THE bold front page headline in The West Australian newspaper of the May 10 was: “Child Killer to be Freed”.

“The West” is the only daily newspaper in the vast state of Western Australia.

Arthur Greer was convicted and jailed for life in 1993 for the murder of Sharon Mason, aged 15. Sharon was reported missing in 1983.

Her mutilated body was found wrapped in plastic in 1992 by workers excavating behind a shop previously owned by Greer, and in 1994, Greer was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

He has never shown any remorse and continues to protest his innocence. Since 2001, his parole applications have been denied.

When the now frail 80-year-old Greer is released he will be deported to the United Kingdom, that being the land of his birth.

He can change his name and spend the rest of his life on the over-stretched UK’s Social Security and National Health Service.

The irony of this is that in the 17th and 18th centuries the United Kingdom exiled its criminals, many for minor offences, to Australia.

They were the foundations of the Australia of today.

Now in the beginning of the 21st Century, Australia is exiling its convicted child murderers to the United Kingdom.

Greer should have spent the rest of his miserable life in a maximum security jail in Western Australia, not living in the UK.

I write this as both my wife Mavis and I read The Northern Echo online everyday. We lived in St Paul’s Terrace, Shildon, before coming to Australia in 1968.

Bernie “Barney” Whitworth, Safety Bay, Western Australia